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Sunday, March 1, 2009

Ever wanted to Brew beer in a pumpkin, but found yourself intimidated by the unkown? Well thanks to Nate Poell, the process by which this this awesome accomplishment might be realized has been laid out for us in detail. To be fair to both the creator of the process, and to home-brewing as an artform, it is suggested that the following not be attempted by first-time brewers. Here it is, how to brewe pumpkin beer, inside of a pumpkin, in 20 easy steps.

Big surprise: you’ll use the pumpkin as the fermenting vessel. To create/prepare the wort – which in turn ferments into beer, you’ll need something to mash the barley in. Pumpkins are great because they have built-in insulation. It’s just like nature’s fiberglass, really.

Once you get the pumpkin carved, you are going to have to clean the beast out. This is the most physically straining task involved; dress accordingly. A walking shorts-and-Crocs combo is recommended. Make sure you get all the pumpkin guts out.

This step requires the use of a power drill. If your neighbor is unwilling to loan you tools after what happened last time, a screwdriver should suffice. The tap is fit into a hole drilled into the pumpkin. The thick walls of the pumpkin might make it difficult to connect the manifold to the tap. Once the tap is attached, it is now called a Tun. Reward yourself with a puns - what is now in front of you may now be referred to as a ‘Tunkin’.

The mash is complete, and now more hot liquor is added to the mash tun. This is done to draw more sugars out of the mash, increase the viscosity of the wort (to better the flow of the run off), and increase the volume of wort to be boiled.

The sweet wort is slowly drawn off the tun into the kettle. Note that the sparge continues as the wort is run off. Typically, wort is re-circulated; recirculation clarifies the wort and draws more sugar out of the grain.

The boil is complete and wort is then pumped from the kettle through chillers into a sanitized bucket. After passing through the chillers, the wort temperature is approximately 70 degrees Farenheit. Chilling makes it possible to immediately inoculate the wort with yeast and reduce the possibility of a bacterial infection.

The starting gravity of the wort (i.e., the amount of sugars and particulate matter in the wort -- water has a specific gravity of 1.000) was 1.042, making it a fairly light beer.

This pumpkin fermentor (pictured) holds approx. three gallons of wort. Once the wort is in the fermentor, beer yeast -- specifically, Danstar's Nottingham ale yeast -- is pitched and the wort is aerated to increase the oxygen available to the yeast. The aerated, inoculated wort in its closed up, air-tight home.

A hydrometer reading will show that the gravity of the beer had fallen to ~1.010. At this point, fermentation of the beer is complete. Good news! The next step is to siphon beer into a glass carboy (i.e., a big jug).